00:02,
July 10, 2018

So I've been meaning to replace the old battery-backed RAM in my Taxi
pinball machine for a while, and so when I had nothing better to do on
Sunday, I started poking around to figure out what I needed.

Got that ordered, and since I was on a roll, I replaced a bunch of bulbs that
were out.

And then I started testing the power supply power...

At this point I was making a day of it.

We've been here before

I the process of figuring out what I've got, I realized that Williams
actually labeled all of the circuit boards with a serial number, and the model
number of the game it was intended for (or at least, came from.

Taxi is #553.

However, my main board is labeled 567 - Jokerz!. So is the power supply
board. But the "auxilliary power board" is labeled 568 - Earthshaker.

All of this means that my machine has been through an extensive refurb before.

And here too

Today, I started investigating why the "spin-out" launcher ramp wasn't working
as well as it used to. I think it's because the launcher makes contact too high
on the ball, but I haven't really finished the investigation yet.

One suggestion was to make sure the switch that registers a rotation around the
spin-out bowl is just barely resistant, so it doesn't slow the ball down... and
while taking the assembly out, I found a major part of the issue is a crack in
the plastic.

But then, when I took the entire assembly out, I found more evidence of a
previous refurb - someone "fixed" this by applying metal duct tape to the
underside of the spinner, to keep the cracked chunk in place.

Curiouser and curiouser.

To Do List

So here's the next few steps:

Replace RAM with NVRAM

Who wants their high scores to disappear when shutting the machine off? Who
wants to have to setup all the system settings ever time you turn the machine
on?

Or more importantly, who wants leaky AA batteries ruining your main board?